DUBLIN, 2 October 2008: ElectroConvulsive Therapy is no therapy at all. That is the clear conclusion from research carried out by leading figures in the field and which the Wellbeing Foundation republishes here today as a public service in the continuing debate on ECT (see right-hand column for links to download these papers).

FDA Announces 20 Dangerous Drugs You Should NOT Be On A 2007 federal law requires the US Food and Drugs Administration to disclose all its investigations into reports of possibly drug-related adverse events. The first of this series of quarterly reports has been released. It includes adverse events reported between January 1 and March 31, 2008. Here's the list of drugs and the adverse events that have been reported: here The list includes the SSNRI Cymbalta, an anti-depressant made by Eli Lilly. Cymbalta is widely prescribed in Ireland. The drug was implicated in the suicide on 7 February 2004 of a 19-year-old student, Traci Johnson, who had been taking part in clinical trials at the Lilly Lab in Indiana. See more here

    Anti-ECT campaigners, whether lay people or qualified doctors, have been vilified by certain supporters of ECT in the psychiatric profession and accused of producing no evidence to support their claims that ECT is both damaging and ineffective. Here, then, is that evidence, and it is safe to say that this evidence comes from professionals far more eminent in their field than any of our critics here in Ireland.
    Most of this evidence has been available to professionals and the curious public for over a year. For example, the first scientific paper we reproduce, 'The Cognitive Effects of Electroconvulsive Therapy in Community Settings', was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in 2007. One dates from 1998, the others from 2005, 2006 and again 2007. One might be tempted to think, from the subsequent contributions by certain Irish psychiatrists, that the latter are ignorant of this important research or have not read and evaluated it.
    One of the notable things about the the first paper mentioned is that its lead author, Harold J Sackeim, is a prominent advocate of the medical model and of the school of biological psychiatry, a school whose very basis we question. Dr Sackeim has for many years been a leading advocate of ECT. Yet in this paper he comes as close as one could expect to a public recantation of his previous views. Dr Sackeim, to his credit, has led a team which collected evidence, solid, empirical evidence, of the cognitive impairments (read, memory loss and intellectual impairment) caused by ECT even in its 'least worst' form. And Dr Sackeim has taken account of that evidence — he now rejects, at the very least, the widespread use of ECT, and more particularly the use of most forms of ECT (certainly those widely used here in Ireland).
    This gamekeeper has turned poacher. Would that his Irish colleagues take note, and even follow suit.
    The other papers are as valuable, and all give evidence supporting and bolstering our view that ECT is medically dangerous and should be banned. The earliest is Dr Peter Breggin's famous study from 1998, 'Electroshock: scientific, ethical, and political issues', published in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine .
    'Patients' perspectives on electroconvulsive therapy: a systematic review' was published in the British Medical Journal in January 2005; 'Memory and cognitive effects of ECT: informing and assessing patients' in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment  in 2006; 'Cognitive rehabilitation: assessment and treatment of persistent memory impairments following ECT' in the same journal in 2007; and we include, for its inherent interest and for providing some profound insights by those on the sharp end, 'The Electroshock Quotationary' by Leonard Roy Frank, published in June 2006.
    Most institutional psychiatrists in Ireland have been too fond of claiming that their profession is united in advocating ECT and in rejecting accusations that it damages mental and intellectual functioning in several serious ways. This is simply not true: their profession, at least elsewhere, is seriously divided on this issue and cannot agree either on the efficacy of ECT or its serious effects. The evidence is clear.
    In such circumstances, the politicians who will shortly return to the debate on the three senators' Bill to ban involuntary electroshock must take the approach of considering primarily the political, ethical and human rights aspects of the current ECT regime in our mental health system and avoid the medical debate.
    Even if they were to conduct hearings into the medical arguments, with evidence from all camps (including patient groups and 'consumer' advocates), it would most likely be fruitless — a rabbit hole of metaphysical claim and counter-claim from which they might not ever return.
    The issue should be decided on one criterion — do current rules on the administration of ECT conform even to the minimum standards required to uphold the human rights of the patient? The answer to this is clearly NO — and on that basis, and that basis alone, the senators' Bill should be passed into law.

The campaign against ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) received a big boost on 25 June 2008 when a Private Members Bill was debated for two hours in Seanad Eireann.
Proposed by Green Party senators Deirdre de Burca and Dan Boyle together with independent senator David Norris, the Bill deals with two provisions of the Mental Health Act 2001. One is section 58, which refers to psychosurgery, the surgical removal or modification of parts of the brain to achieve a psychological aim — lobotomy.
    The other is Section 59, dealing with ECT. The Bill would ban the use of ECT without the consent of the patient concerned.
    At present, electric shock treatment is widely used on involuntary patients in mental hospitals in Ireland.
    All the senators who spoke supported the notion of having a debate on these issues, though not all supported the specific amendment proposed on ECT. Those who did not support it outright nonetheless favoured a thorough investigation by the legislature of the issue, perhaps at hearings by the Joint Committee on Health and Children, and were sympathetic to the need to protect mental health service users from the arbitrary use of what they recognise as, to say the least, a "controversial" method of treatment.
    The debate was adjourned without a vote, so the Bill lives to be debated further following the investigations proposed by several senators and accepted by the proposers.
    Now, then, is the time to write to senators  and TDs demanding that they support this Bill.
    You can download e-mail addresses for both Dail deputies and Senators here and here.
    A number of anti-ECT campaigners from around the country attended the debate, joined in a welcome act of solidarity by Professor Ivor Browne, retired Professor of Psychiatry at UCD and formerly Chief Psychiatrist of the Dublin and Eastern health region. The group included John McCarthy of Mad Pride Ireland, who contested the last general election as an independent candidate representing mental health service users, Drs Michael Corry and Aine Tubridy, and authors Mary and Jim Maddock of MindFreedom Ireland.
    The entire debate, well worth reading, is available on the Oireachtas Eireann website here. Download the Bill here

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